Sunday, 23 February 2014

I'm not an avid Kickstarter follower (if I were, I'd have gone broke
long ago). I tend to wind up backing campaigns that come to my attention via
other means (in other words, they're in the process of going viral). That said,
I've backed plenty of campaigns over the years, and so I'd like to think I have
a little bit of familiarity with how they usually operate.

When Ozobot came to my attention, I found it unusual, because they were
pre-promoting their Kickstarter campaign before it opened. To me, this looked
like a case of them trying to build hype prior to the campaign opening, which
was a new one to me. The whole thing seemed incredibly slick, and I was
surprised they were "only" seeking $100K.

The product looked like it'd be something cool for Zoe to play with, so I
decided to back it anyway. Then all the updates started flowing in about how
well it was being received at various trade shows and whatnot. Yet the amount
of dollars flowing into the Kickstarter campaign didn't seem to be reflecting
the external hype. I was watching the campaign's dashboard with great interest,
because as time marched on, it was looking more and more likely that it wasn't
going to make its funding target. This seemed highly unusual to me, given the
slickness of the product and purported external interest in it.

And then they pulled the plug on the campaign. Purportedly because they were
pursuing equity funding instead. They admitted they'd also read the writing on
the wall and it was unlikely they were going to make their funding target. I
haven't followed other campaigns to see how much of a last minute funding "pop"
they have. Usually I've found they've closed at many multiples of their
original target, and hit their target well in advance of their deadline, when
they're ridiculously popular. My interpretation of Ozobot's campaign, from a
funding perspective, is that Kickstarters gave it a big fat "MEH", which
surprised me somewhat.

Then the question comes up: was the Kickstarter campaign a ruse all along? Was
it just a new way of pitching for venture capital? The videos seemed pretty
slick. The product seemed already complete, and $100K didn't seem like enough
to take it to manufacturing.